A dying girl
hung her heavy head
over a carpet
aged to smoker's gray.
She collapsed on a floor
covered in crumpled clothes,
stripped off and
tossed aside.

She knelt beside
a bed that once held
goodnight kisses and
rosy morning cheeks,
now full of tears that
dawn turned to braille,
spelling slow defeat
beneath mourning fingers.

Pulling her curly hair
taut in tired fists,
she freed every bit
swiftly from her scalp and
nicked her tender skin with
tiny rusted blades until
there was nothing left
but raw flesh.

She caught a thief
moving in the mirror
with body bags
beneath her eyes:
a ghostly girl,
a stolen soul,
a blank mask,
a hood of bone.